High Tech (Live): the incredible depth of simple experiences

Posted May 31, 2012
by Michael Slater

Back in April, I gave a talk at O’Reilly’s Ignite event in my hometown of Sebastopol, California (also O’Reilly’s hometown). I created a ‘studio’ version of the talk and posted it then, since it takes a while for the live videos to get edited (O’Reilly takes the time to edit in the slides, so the video goes back and forth between the slide images and the video of the presenter).

The live version has now been posted, and here it is:

It’s interesting to look at the differences between the two versions of the talk. The live version does not use builds in the slides, and of course it was a one-shot deal, so there are a couple blunders. The studio version is more polished, I was able to fix the mistakes, and the slides are more animated.

The studio version lacks the energy of the live one, however. Try as I might, I have not been able to create a similar delivery when recording in a room by myself. It’s curious how much the presence of the audience affects me. I aspire to being able to imagine the audience, and present as if there was one, when recording by myself—but I’m not there yet.